Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness in Around the World in 80 Books

Aug 04, 2011 Nadine in NY Jones rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir-and-autobiographical-essays

We sit outside where the air smells of miombo woodland and we smoke cigarettes and look at the comforting lights from the scores of cooking fires smoldering from the kitchens in the surrounding village. Occasionally we hear a dog barking from the taverns on the Kafue Road and soldiers in the nearby army camp shouting to one another or letting off the odd stray bullet. It’s all very peaceful.

Its hard to read this and not compare it to Ms Fuller's previous memoir, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs To

We sit outside where the air smells of miombo woodland and we smoke cigarettes and look at the comforting lights from the scores of cooking fires smoldering from the kitchens in the surrounding village. Occasionally we hear a dog barking from the taverns on the Kafue Road and soldiers in the nearby army camp shouting to one another or letting off the odd stray bullet. It’s all very peaceful.

Its hard to read this and not compare it to Ms Fuller's previous memoir, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. This one is the story of her parents (mostly focused on her mother), and there is a certain overlap with Don't (naturally enough, since parents lives overlap children's lives), but this book lacks the immediacy if Don't until Ms Fuller begins describing the years after her own birth.

To my surprise there are multiple references to her mother's dislike of Ms Fuller's first memoir, "That Awful Book" - surprise because (a) it was a good book, and (b) I always assumed memoirists received their family members approval before publishing, and (c) here she is apparently interviewing her mother and father for a second book, and (d) while there are many mentions if her mother's disapproval of the first book, no where in this book is any mention of her mother's approval to write a second book ABOUT her mother (and father). For two years she says her mother was barely talking to her, because of "That Awful Book." I felt uncomfortably voyeuristic: all these intimate details of someone's life ... is it okay for me to read them?

While I did not love this book as much as the first, I did find it engaging and enthralling, and I look forward to eventually reading Fuller's third memoir (Leaving Before the Rains Come). She is an excellent writer, and she makes the life feel both magical and feral.

In retrospect, of course, everyone should have anticipated this outcome. We should have seen that a story begun with such one-sided, unconscious joviality—jewel-colored liqueurs and Portuguese wine on a rain-washed Rhodesian October morning—would end less than a decade later in defeat and heartbreak. But in the glow of love, in the heat of battle, in the cushioned denial of the present, how few have the wisdom to look forward with unclouded hindsight. Not my parents, certainly. Not most of us. But most of us also don’t pay so dearly for our prejudices, our passions, our mistakes. Lots of places, you can harbor the most ridiculous, the most ruining, the most intolerant beliefs and be hurt by nothing more than your own thoughts.

Fuller's parents' lives are eventful and not without tragedy. It may have been a mistake to read a book like this whole my dog is at the vets having surgery, and I'm a little bit worried about her, since she is my baby. Things got pretty maudlin for me.

The Tree of Forgetfulness is finally described towards the end of the book. (It's always important to me that the title make sense!) It is a large tree on the plot of land where her parents started a fish and banana farm.

"...Madam. This is the Tree of Forgetfulness. All the headmen here plant one of these trees in their village.” Mr. Zulu held his forearm steady as if to demonstrate the power of the tree. “You can plant it just like that, from one stick, and it is so strong it will become a tree. They say ancestors stay inside it. If there is some sickness or if you are troubled by spirits, then you sit under the Tree of Forgetfulness and your ancestors will assist you with whatever is wrong.” He nodded and took another drag of his cigarette. “It is true—all your troubles and arguments will be resolved.”

“Do you believe that?” Mum asked, but before Mr. Zulu could reply she waved her own question away. “I believe it’s true,” she said. “I believe it two million percent.” Mum looked up into the branches of the tree again and she smiled.

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Apr 11, 2023 Lara rated it really liked it

Very moving and thoughtful story of Fuller's parents' lives in Africa and the shift from colonialism to African independence during their time there. Fuller balances a willingness to criticize her parents' worldview with a respect for the challenges they survived. She shows how much Africa changed over a very short period of time. Her family stories are often hilarious and the historical context she offers around events like the Mau Mau uprising and the Boer and Rhodesian wars are fascinating. S ...more

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Jan 13, 2012 Susan rated it really liked it

Biography of the author's mother, her life in Africa, wonderful reading. ...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Nancy rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2011-read, travel, africa

This is a skimpy and unjustified reworking of the material comprising her earlier and much better memoir and Fuller commits the sin of being self-referential to boot. This one really is, to use her phrase, an Awful Book.

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